WATCH THE NWU EXCELLENCE AWARDS
"Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.""
– Paul J. Meyer
NWU Excellence Awards
18:00 PM
2020-2021 l Online Event
25 November 2021
Campuses
3
Provinces
2
Units
3
Award Ceremony
1
About the NWU Excellence Awards
The North-West University Excellence Awards is a milestone for North-West University as a unitary University, where we honour all our excellent academics across our three legs of core business, Teaching and Learning, Community Services and Research & Innovation in one function for the first time to be inclusive. We begin with the Teaching and Learning awards, then Community Engagement awards and then Research and Innovation awards.
This order is not to suggest any order of precedence, because it is not a linear approach, but is circular in nature. This is because the stated purpose of the North-West University is “to excel in innovative teaching and learning and cutting-edge research, thereby benefiting society through knowledge.” We are therefore not an ivory tower removed from the surrounding community. Instead, Community Engagement infuses and engages our Teaching and Learning and our Research and Innovation, thereby enriching it and making it relevant.
If you wish to achieve Excellence, you first need to be able to define it. Excellence is a term that can mean different things to different people at various times. With COVID-19 we are forced to consider how quality teaching can still be maintained in a new world. COVID-19 forced us all to step out of our comfort zones.
Our Dream at the North-West University is to be an Internationally recognised university in Africa, distinguished for engaged scholarship, social responsiveness, and an ethic of care. However, dreams will remain dreams if we do not know how to turn them into goals.
It is because of this purpose that we can symbolise our core business as a circle, where we need to teach to be and remain relevant in our communities and, while we are making an impact in our communities, we are involved in research and innovation to inform our Teaching and Learning. By this means the circle is completed and never ending, keeping us committed to our purpose.
What makes a university good – rankings, impact research, employable graduates – BUT what is holding all of this together? The answer is simple – our most valuable resource, our staff. This is so important because how you view your role as an academic is not restricted to your classroom – it can be seen in people in the way we live, we speak and we act. It is inseparable from life. When we work together at the North-West University, we do not try to be the best in everything – we try to be the best North-West University with our own dream and staying true to our values. We want to deliver work of such a quality that it is internationally recognised, whilst we are committed to social justice and in our work, we display an ethic of care.
The Awards
NWU Teaching Excellence Awards
Teaching and Learning are the core business of higher education in South Africa. The quality of education, whether in continuing education, post- or undergraduate programmes, depends on three factors: academic knowledge, skills and the andragogic knowledge utilised and developed by academics to ensure that teaching and learning are collaborative, lead to critical thinking, are innovative and stimulating. Student as well as staff development is complementary in terms of our commitment to a quality education experience. The North-West University, South Africa's second largest university, with its long investment in open distance learning, has adopted social justice as the lens through which all education and related provision is considered, synthesised and organised. Social justice explains our commitment to self-direction in student learning, a commitment to 21st-century skills, as well as high-quality student support, especially in online or distance learning modes. Social justice explains our commitment to maximise opportunities for students to use their languages of preference as well as to master English as a common language of communication. Social justice also explains our sense of the curriculum as being inclusive of the community (service as well as workplace experience)
Community Engagement Awards
As a leading teaching-learning and research institution with a footprint that spans two of South Africa’s provinces, North-West University recognises that it has a responsibility to ensure that the wealth of knowledge generated via the university’s three campuses is harnessed to the benefit of the community it serves. More importantly, though, we acknowledge that had it not been for the generous support and rich material generated by the very communities we serve, we would not have been able to gain recognition as an institution of higher learning that harnesses diversity and pursues innovation with the specific intent to make a meaningful difference in South Africa and the world. Thus, as much as we share our research findings and innovative ideas with society in general, we make it our business to engage with our communities to learn from and be taught by them. In fact, North-West University's core business activities can only be regarded as significant and sustainable if we, as the academic partner, succeed in actively engaging with our communities of interest and communities of practice to ensure that both the university’s expertise and the rich experiences of the people we serve are put to best possible use.
Research and Innovation Awards
The North-West University honors the best of its best researchers and innovators. Many outstanding staff members get acknowledged at this prestigious event for achieving excellence in research including researchers with new and upgraded NRF ratings. The winners of the Vice Chancellor's medal for the best degree student over all faculties and the S2A3 award for the best master’s degree student in either of the following faculties, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Health Sciences and Faculty of Natural & Agricultural Sciences also gets acknowledged on this platform. The North-West University research & innovation community continues to reach new heights and are thus taking pride in their hard work and dedication
The Speakers
The Entertainment
